Endoscopes of small size are desired in many industrial and medical applications. For example, when natural orifices and lumens of a human body are small, small endoscopes are required for insertion through such orifices and lumens to target locations within the body. For single incision laparoscopy, smaller endoscopes are preferred to provide an inside-the-body view of the surgical site, particularly when the incision itself is of minimal dimensions. Sometimes, patients may feel irritating when an endoscope is being inserted into his or her body, and a smaller endoscope may mitigate such unpleasant experience and may minimize trauma to the patient. Moreover, a physician may improve diagnostic and procedural protocols with a smaller endoscope. For example, transnasal endoscopy may sometimes replace trans-oral endoscopy.
To meet the small-size requirement, an apparent solution is to decrease the size of each individual component within the endoscope, for example, using a smaller size camera or a smaller size fiber bundle. However, there are limits to how much reduction can be achieved, and each size reduction has its cost in terms of performance and assembly complexity. Advantageously, the present invention provides a new solution to solve the problems.